Can't install Win 10 Education

countchocula · 18 Jan 2021

Hi all,
I have a laptop that previously had Win 10 Enterprise on it (OEM), installed by my department. I formatted the C partition and am now trying to install Win 10 Education with a valid key. The installer installs Win 10 Home, and when I enter my key to upgrade, I keep getting 0x800f005 errors . Microsoft say this is because my machine is registered on their servers as having the OEM windows installed, and i can't "upgrade" from there. Very strange. Any thoughts on how to get Win 10 Education installed?
thanks!

sygnus21 · 18 Jan 2021

I'm currently running Windows 10 Education on my backup system (system 2 in my system specs) without issue.

I did a clean install and and supplied the license key when it was asked for. BTW, you need a valid license key since you can't use the free "upgrade" key. That said, do you have a valid license that came with the Education version?

Also, on my old Asus notebook, it came with an OEM version of Windows 8, but I wiped the drive and did a clean install of Windows 10 without issue, though that was some years back.

NavyLCDR · 18 Jan 2021

@countchocula,

Completely disconnect the computer from the internet. With the computer disconnected from the internet, upgrade to Education using the generic key:

YNMGQ-8RYV3-4PGQ3-C8XTP-7CFBY

Then reconnect to the internet and change the product key to your Windows 10 Education product key to activate it.

sygnus21 · 18 Jan 2021

@countchocula

There's no need to disconnect from the internet. I've never done so myself and I've installed Windows 10 quite a few times. People try to make things more difficult than they need without without realizing there is more than one way to do things.

And I definitely didn't "disconnect" from the Internet when I upgraded my Windows 10 Pro system to Windows 10 Education. And the OS activated without issue....

Can't install Win 10 Education-win-10-education-activation.png

You just need a valid Windows 10 Education license.

Megahertz · 18 Jan 2021

Top Gurus,

OP has already formatted the C: partition.

Should he clean all other partition but data partition and do a clean install?
What version should he install then, Home or Pro or can he install Education directly?

sygnus21 · 18 Jan 2021

Megahertz said:

Should he clean all other partition but data partition and do a clean install?
What version should he install then, Home or Pro or can he install Education directly?

I did a clean install of Windows 10 Education directly. When you get to the screen asking for the license number, input the Education key. And again, you need a valid license number for Education. That version isn't free. That said, not aware if there's a "trial" version or not.

Megahertz · 18 Jan 2021

Thanks sygnus21. What pops up first, the license input screen or the to choose home or pro?

NavyLCDR · 18 Jan 2021

Oh boy, here we go.... @sygnus21, @Megahertz,

@countchocula has a computer with a product key for Windows Home (could be for 8/8.1 or 10) stored in the UEFI firmware. The standard Windows 10 Setup media is reading that product key and automatically picking Windows 10 Home to install. It will not give the user a chance to intervene and choose which version of Windows 10 to install. In order to "just clean install" Windows 10 Education they would need to either create a custom Windows 10 install media that contained only the image for Windows 10 Education and no other editions, or they would need to modify the existing Windows 10 media with a custom ei.cfg file in the sources folder.

Now that they have Home installed, when they try to upgrade to Education, Windows is complaining about an OEM edition. It's not complaining about the Windows 10 Home being OEM - it's complaining about the product key for Windows 10 Education being OEM. Why? Because why would an OEM need to upgrade an already installed edition of Windows? An OEM would not have need to do that. But there is a workaround. You can upgrade using the generic product key for the edition of Windows 10 you want to upgrade to. But the problem with that is that if the computer is connected to the internet when you try to do the upgrade, Windows is going to contact Microsoft Activation servers first to see if there is a digital license for the version of Windows 10 you want to upgrade to. If there is no pre-existing digital license for that edition, then the upgrade will fail.

So, to prevent that, you disconnect the computer from the internet. Now when you upgrade using the generic product key, it won't check for a pre-existing digital license, it will just do the upgrade without question. Now that you have the desired edition of Windows 10, it won't be activated. So you reconnect to the internet, change the product key to your OEM product key for the new edition you now have, and it will activate.

sygnus21 · 18 Jan 2021

Megahertz said:

Thanks sygnus21. What pops up first, the license input screen or the to choose home or pro?

The versions screen, and you need to choose Education, then when the license screen pops up input the license number for Education. That's what I ACTUALLY did. And as shown in my post with the image it worked. Also didn't need to "disconnect" from the internet.

Navy can argue all he wants, I know what I did and I knew it would work because I've actual experience here.

Movin on.

Paul Black · 18 Jan 2021

I DON'T know if this will work or even if it is related in this situation, but, would GatherOSState be applicable in a case like this?

> GatherOSState.exe Provides Win10 License Info for Clean Install

Just a thought!